Entries in Michele Flournoy
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Our coverage of the battle within the Obama Administration over Iraq and Afghanistan strategy reached The Guardian last night with Scott Lucas' analysis of the President's plans and General David Petraeus's manoeuvres:

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HOW MANY TROOPS IS ENOUGH?General David Petraeus is subtly challenging President Obama's views on the number of US troops needed in Afghanistan

With the compromise over an Iraq timetable and Obama's recent announcement of the Pakistan-Afghanistan strategy consensus seemed to have emerged. In fact, Petraeus had won quiet victories. A loose definition of "non-combat forces" meant tens of thousands of American troops could remain in Iraq after September 2010. While headlines said Obama had approved an extra 17,000 troops in Afghanistan, the boost was actually 30,000, the amount that military commanders had been seeking. No wonder Petraeus appeared alongside Obama envoy Richard Holbrooke on political talkshows to promote the plan.

Everything all right then?

No.

Last week, Petraeus was back on the attack. He told congressmen on Capitol Hill that "American commanders have requested the deployment of an additional 10,000 US troops to Afghanistan next year, [although] the request awaits a final decision by President Obama this fall."

The general couldn't have been clearer: if you want his solution in Afghanistan, then the president's recent announcement was only an interim step. As Ann Scott Tyson put it in the Washington Post: "The ratio of coalition and Afghan security forces to the population is projected through 2011 to be significantly lower than the 20 troops per 1,000 people prescribed by the army counterinsurgency manual [Petraeus] helped write."

How brazen, even defiant, is this? Consider that, only three days earlier, the president had tried to hold the line against precisely this "bit more, bit more, OK, a bit more" demand. He said he had "resourced properly" the Pakistan-Afghanistan strategy and had pre-emptively warned his generals: "What I will not do is to simply assume that more troops always result in an improved situation … There may be a point of diminishing returns."

In the congressional hearings, Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defence, insisted that the US plan was to concentrate forces in "the insurgency belt in the south and east", rather than throughout Afghanistan, as Petraeus preferred, and tried to signal that there would be upward shifts in deployments: "Troops would arrive, as planned, in 2010."

Still, even as Obama was travelling to Europe to get Nato's support for his approach, Petraeus was subtly challenging his president. Both are invoking an al-Qaieda threat against the US and the world as the call for action. Both are setting the disruption of the Pakistani safe havens as an immediate US objective.

The president sees "a comprehensive strategy that doesn't just rely on bullets or bombs, but also relies on agricultural specialists, on doctors, on engineers", an inter-agency approach with increased economic aid, including a trebling to $1.5bn per year for Pakistan, and a boost in civilian workers.

For Petraeus "comprehensive", even if it must have non-military as well as military dimensions, means an effort led by the Pentagon in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Military commanders have steadily taken over non-military programmes, including information operations and economic development, from other agencies. (In last week's hearings, the general announced a Pakistani Counterinsurgency Capability Fund of $3bn, taking responsibility for security assistance from the US state department.)

Even more importantly, Obama has left open the possibility that if the military approach runs into trouble, then it will be reconsidered: "[This is] not going to be an open-ended commitment of infinite resources." He even broke the taboo of the v-word last Sunday: "I'm enough of a student of history to know that the United States, in Vietnam and other countries, other epochs of history have overextended to the point where they were severely weakened."

In mid-February, the president called the US commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, and asked how the general planned to use an extra 30,000 troops. According to a White House official, Obama "got no coherent answer to the question".

What we are witnessing goes beyond the egos and aspirations of two intelligent, confident American leaders. And it is beyond the dreaded v-word of the 1960s or the contrasting myth of Petraeus' successful Iraq surge.

This is the tension of what the historian Marilyn Young labels the "limited unlimited war". Even as President Obama sets aside the phrase "global war on terror", he frames this particular intervention in the terms of the ongoing battle against Osama bin Laden and his extremist allies. Doing so, he leaves himself open to the vision of Petraeus, for whom the counterinsurgency operation never quite reaches an end.

In January/February, wepaidcloseattention to a runningbattle between General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, with his President over Obama's plans in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It appeared, however, that the compromise over the Iraq withdrawal and last week's Obama announcement of the Pakistan-Afghanistan strategy established consensus. Indeed, Petraeus had won a quiet victory. The headlines said Obama had approved an extra 17,000 troops; in fact, if you include support forces, the boost was 30,000, the amount that military commanders had been seeking. No wonder Petraeus even went alongside Obama envoy Richard Holbrooke on the Sunday talk shows to promote the plan.

All right then?

No.

On Wednesday Petraeus was back to his My Way approach on the US military approach in Afghanistan: "American commanders have requested the deployment of an additional 10,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year, [although] the request awaits a final decision by President Obama this fall."

Dave couldn't have been clearer: if you want his plan in Afghanistan (which his spin machine is assuring you is the case), then give him more soldiers: "The ratio of coalition and Afghan security forces to the population is projected through 2011 to be significantly lower than the 20 troops per 1,000 people prescribed by the Army counterinsurgency manual he helped write."

How brazen, even defiant, is this? Consider that on Sunday the President tried to hold the line against precisely this "bit more, bit more, OK, a bit more" demand. He said he had "resourced properly" the strategy and pre-emptively warned his generals, "What I will not do is to simply assume that more troops always result in an improved situation ... There may be a point of diminishing returns."

Michele Flournoy, the Undersecretary of Defense, tried to maintain this position in the Congressional hearing. She insisted that the US plan was to concentrate forces in "the insurgency belt in the south and east," rather than (Petraeus' preference) throughout Afghanistan. "Troops would arrive, as planned, in 2010."

The "comprehensive strategy" announced last Friday means different things to the President and Petraeus. For Obama, the troop increase has to be integrated with the non-military measures. If those measures, then the military approach also has to be reconsidered, not necessarily for another "surge" but for an "exit strategy".

For Petraeus, "comprehensive" means military-first. And, if the violence continues and even increases, then that will be his rationale for yet more soldiers into the conflict.

Lace up your boots, folks. There may be a war brewing in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but there is also one underway in Washington, D.C.